|
 Hey John,
Students are heading back to campus in the coming weeks, but DeVos’ Title IX regulation is still in place.
The Trump Administration did everything in its power to make it easier for schools to dismiss pervasive sexual violence by issuing anti-survivor Title IX regulations, relying on harmful lies and disinformation about Title IX spread by sexist extremists. Now, thanks to DeVos’s rule, schools can ignore most survivors’ complaints of sexual violence with little consequence.
It’s time to undo this harmful policy. Student survivors don’t have the luxury of waiting for this administration to take their safety and rights seriously while they are denied the most basic protections because they weren’t assaulted or harassed at the right place, by the right person, or at the right time. Every day that passes only increases the numbers of survivors who will be forced to suffer because of DeVos’s Title IX rule and their school’s failure to protect their safety and educational access.
Join us here to demand the Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona:
1. Issues proposed changes to the Title IX rule by October 1, 2021. The Department of Education must act swiftly to ensure that no survivor is pushed out of school because of sexual violence and harassment.
2. Issues a Nonenforcement Directive on DeVos’ Title IX rule, indicating that, while we wait for a new rule, the Department will not enforce the sections of DeVos’ Title IX rule that (among other things):
- Forbid schools from following state or local laws addressing sexual violence in education that provide greater protections for student survivors if they conflict with the DeVos Title IX rule;
-
Force survivors into unfair and hostile investigations and hearings which only apply to victims of sexual violence, but not to other forms of campus misconduct and violence; and
-
Require schools to dismiss Title IX complaints based on the location of the harassment, because the complainant has not suffered enough, or because the survivor was already pushed out by the sexual harassment/violence.
3. Ensures that survivors can file complaints when their rights are violated.
In 2020, DeVos' Department of Education altered the case processing manual to limit the number of students who hold their school accountability for violating Title IX through the Office for Civil Rights. Currently, students have only 180 days from the FIRST instance of discrimination to file a complaint. Instead, survivors should be allowed to file within 180 days from the most recent instance of discrimination instead of from the first instance.
Together, we can fight for a world where the cost of an education never includes sexual violence.
In Solidarity,
Sage Carson
Senior Manager of Title IX Policy and Programming
Advocates for Youth
|
